Obesity remains a serious health problem and it is no secret that many people want to lose weight. Behavioral economists typically argue that “nudges” help individuals with various decisionmaking flaws to live longer, healthier, and better lives. In an article in the new issue of Regulation, Michael L. Marlow discusses how nudging by government differs from nudging by markets, and explains why market nudging is the more promising avenue for helping citizens to lose weight.

Armed with a computer model in 1935, one could probably have written the exact same story on California drought as appears today in the Washington Post some 80 years ago, prompted by the very similar outlier temperatures of 1934 and 2014.

Two long wars, chronic deficits, the financial crisis, the costly drug war, the growth of executive power under Presidents Bush and Obama, and the revelations about NSA abuses, have given rise to a growing libertarian movement in our country – with a greater focus on individual liberty and less government power. David Boaz’s newly released The Libertarian Mind is a comprehensive guide to the history, philosophy, and growth of the libertarian movement, with incisive analyses of today’s most pressing issues and policies.

Tag: China

The difference between the trade policy we have today and the trade policy we should have is like the difference between crony capitalism and free-market capitalism. The sausage grinder that is U.S. trade policy serves politicians and rewards lobbyists and gate-keeper bureaucrats, who have the gall to presume entitlement to limiting Americans’ options and picking winners and losers.

In a country that exalts freedom, the default trade policy should be free trade. But it’s not. Why?

The public has been trained to accept that special interests—companies seeking exemptions from competition; unions demanding that citizens ”Buy American”; investors and intellectual property holders demanding the U.S. public assume part of its business risks; enviros insisting on measures that punish developing countries for being poor—are rightly entitled to negotiate, abridge, impair, or sacrifice those freedoms in the name of Team USA.

So how are we free if decisions about how, with whom, and how much we transact with foreigners are decided by parties in Washington, who profit from denying us that freedom?

Trade policy should be about maximizing the freedom of Americans to choose, and distinctly not about bestowing certain advantages on particular companies, industries, or special interests. Trade policy should be about maximizing opportunities for Americans as consumers, workers, and investors, and not about impeding those opportunities.

In a globalized world where businesses are mobile and, ultimately, untethered to a homeland, what is the point of policymakers going to bat for U.S. producers? Usually, policies adopted to assist particular companies or industries handicap or subvert companies and industries upstream or downstream in the supply chain, or in other sectors. What even defines a U.S. producer anymore? GM builds more vehicles in China than it does in the United States. Should Washington and Beijing both claim GM as national treasures and craft policy to serve its needs?

No. Policy should be neutral with respect to the goals of particular companies and industries, and designed to attract investment and human capital, and to maximize opportunities for Americans to partake of the global economy. Trade policy should be about ensuring certainty and eliminating policy-induced frictions in supply chains. As I wrote in this article (21st Century Economy Deserves Better Than 16th Century Trade Policies), which expounds upon the thoughts in this post:

This 21st century economic reality demands better than trade policies rooted in 16th century mercantilist dogma. It demands policies that are welcoming of imports and foreign investment, and that minimise regulations or administrative frictions that are based on misconceptions about some vague or ill-defined “national interest”.

Mitt Romney attempted to refine his foreign policy platform in a speech at the Virginia Military Institute on Monday, but he was again long on rhetoric and short on strategy. What passed for substance in the speech was largely focused on the Middle East. Predictably, mostofthereactionsto the speech also focused on the Middle East, mainly President Obama’s policy toward Iran’s nuclear program and his response to the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last month.

Notably absent from the media coverage and the speech itself was China. In fact, Romney mentioned China only once. This is discouraging since the U.S.-China relationship will likely be the most important foreign policy issue over the next few decades.

In today’s Cato Podcast, Justin Logan, director of foreign policy studies, discusses America’s China policy and the presidential candidates’ lack of focus on the issue. Obama and Romney have each spent time demagoguing China on their currency and other trade issues. But this political rhetoric has been at the expense of any serious effort to discuss at length how the candidates disagree when it comes to the U.S.-China relationship. Instead, the foreign-policy debate has centered on the greater Middle East, where U.S. interests are much smaller. The candidates exemplify a bipartisan obsession with the Middle East when in large part the consequential issues that the United States will face in the years to come will be much further to the east.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. —Benjamin Franklin

Chinese telecommunications companies Huawei and ZTE long have been in the crosshairs of U.S. policymakers. Rumors that the telecoms are or could become conduits for Chinese government-sponsored cyber espionage or cyber attacks on so-called critical infrastructure in the United States have been swirling around Washington for a few years. Concerns about Huawei’s alleged ties to the People’s Liberation Army were plausible enough to cause the U.S. Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS) to recommend that President Bush block a proposed acquisition by Huawei of 3Com in 2008. Subsequent attempts by Huawei to expand in the United States have also failed for similar reasons, and because of Huawei’s ham-fisted, amateurish public relations efforts.

But there is no smoking gun in the report, only innuendo sold as something more definitive. The most damning evidence against Huawei and ZTE is that the companies were evasive or incomplete when it came to providing answers to questions that would have revealed strategic information that the companies understandably might not want to share with U.S. policymakers, who may have the interests of their own favored U.S. telecoms in mind.

Again, what I see revealed here is inexperience and lack of political sophistication on the part of the Chinese telecoms. It was Huawei—seeking to repair its sullied name and overcome the numerous obstacles it continues to face in its efforts to expand its business in the United States—that requested the full investigation of its operations and ties, not anticipating adequately that the inquiries would put them on the spot. What they got from the investigation was an ultimatum: share strategic information about the company and its plans with U.S. policymakers or be deemed a threat to U.S. national security.

Now we have the House report—publicly fortified by a severely unbalanced 60 Minutes segment this past Sunday—to ratchet up the pressure for a more comprehensive solution. We’ve seen this pattern before: zealous lawmakers identifying imminent threats or gathering storms and then convincing the public that there are no alternatives to their excessive solutions. The public should note that fear imperils our freedoms and bestows greater powers on policymakers with their own agendas.

Granted, I’m no expert in cyber espionage or cyber security and one or both of these Chinese companies may be bad actors. But the House report falls well short of convincing me that either possesses or will deploy cyber weapons of mass destruction against critical U.S. infrastructure or that they are any more hazardous than Western companies utilizing the same or similar supply chains that traverse China or any other country for that matter. And the previous CFIUS recommendtions to the president to block Huawei acquisitions are classified.

Vulnerabilities in communications networks are ever-present and susceptible to insidious code, back doors, and malicious spyware regardless of where the components are manufactured. At best, shunning these two companies will provide a false sense of security.

What should raise red flags is that none of the findings in the House report have anything to do with specific cyber threats or cyber security, but merely reinforce what we already know about China: that its economy operates under a system of state-sponsored capitalism and that intellectual property theft is a larger problem there than it is in the United States.

And the report’s recommendations reveal more of a trade protectionist agenda than a critical infrastructure protection agenda. It states that CFIUS “must block acquisitions, takeovers, or mergers involving Huawei and ZTE given the threat to U.S. national security interests.” (Emphasis added.) What threat? It is not documented in the report.

The report recommends that government contractors “exclude ZTE or Huawei equipment in their systems.” U.S. network providers and systems developers are “strongly encouraged to seek other vendors for their projects.” And it recommends that Congress and the executive branch enforcement agencies “investigate the unfair trade practices of the Chinese telecommunications sector, paying particular attention to China’s continued financial support for key companies.” (Emphasis added.) Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!

Though not made explicit in the report, some U.S. telecom carriers allegedly were warned by U.S. policymakers that purchasing routers and other equipment for their networks from Huawei or ZTE would disqualify them from participating in the massive U.S. government procurement market for telecom services. If true, that is not only heavy-handed, but seemingly strong grounds for a Chinese WTO challenge on the grounds of discriminatory treatment.

Before taking protectionist, WTO-illegal actions—such as banning transactions with certain foreign companies or even “recommending” forgoing such transactions—that would likely cause U.S. companies to lose business in China, the onus is on policymakers, the intelligence committees, and those otherwise in the know to demonstrate that there is a real threat from these companies and that they—U.S. policymakers—are not simply trying to advance the fortunes of their own constituent companies through a particularly insidious brand of industrial policy.

The Obama administration filed a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization on Monday alleging that the Chinese government is bestowing various prohibited subsidies upon Chinese automobile and auto parts producers to the tune of $1 billion and that Beijing is, accordingly, in violation of its commitments under the WTO Agreement on Subsidies and Countervailing Measures.

There are reasons to shake one’s head at this move, including the apparent hypocrisy it reveals of an administration that spins the $85 billion of subsidies it heaped upon two U.S. car companies and the United Autoworkers union as its chief economic accomplishment. Of course that figure doesn’t even include the $12-$14 billion in unorthodox tax breaks granted to GM under the bankruptcy terms; $17 billion in funds committed from the TARP to GM’s former financial arm GMAC (which received taxpayer support to facilitate GM auto sales); GM’s portion of the $25 billion Energy Department slush fund to underwrite research and development in green auto technology; and the $7,500 tax credit granted for every new purchase of a Chevy Volt, and more. (Full story here.)

To complain about $1 billion of Chinese subsidies is – shall we say – a bit rich.

Moreover, the filing of the WTO case reveals some of the unseemly perquisites of incumbency. A large concentration of the beneficiaries of the GM bailout resides in Ohio, a state that has had the administration’s strategic attention since its reelection campaign began in November 2008. But in case that largesse wasn’t enough to secure their support in November 2012, a large concentration of the beneficiaries of a successful U.S. WTO complaint also resides in Ohio, which is where – by Jove – the president was speaking when word of the WTO complaint became public.

It is all exasperating, no doubt.

But the bigger and more disconcerting story in all of this is the apparent ascendancy of economic nationalism within the GOP. Romney’s persistence in trying to brand himself the “most protectionist” or “biggest China basher” in the presidential race sort of forced Obama to bring the WTO case – or at least expedited the timetable. Have you seen the Romney ads? Have you read the shrill RNC taunts that cite the widely-discredited, union-funded Economic Policy Institute’s figures on job losses caused by trade with China? Strange bedfellows, indeed!

It was once the case – not too long ago – that Republican candidates argued in support of trade and the freedom of Americans to partake of the opportunities afforded by the global economy. But things, apparently, have changed. The nationalistic strains within the Republican Party have strengthened since 2009. I explained why this was happening in this 2010 Cato paper, which is excerpted below:

Frictions in the U.S.-China relationship are nothing new, but they have intensified in recent months. Tensions that were managed adeptly in the past are multiplying, and the tenor of official dialogue and public discourse has become more strident. Lately, the media have spilled lots of ink over the proposition that China has thrived at U.S. expense for too long, and that China’s growing assertiveness signals an urgent need for aggressive U.S. policy changes. Once-respected demarcations between geopolitical and economic aspects of the relationship have been blurred. In fact, economic frictions are now more likely to be cast in the context of our geopolitical differences, which often serves to overstate the challenges and obscure the solutions.

A sign of the times is a recent commentary by Washington Post columnist Robert J. Samuelson, in which he declares: “China’s worldview threatens America’s geopolitical and economic interests.” That statement would seem to support a course of action very different from the course implied by the same columnist 18 months earlier, when he wrote, “Globalization means interdependence; major nations ignore that at their peril.” That change of heart appears to be contagious.

Understandably, there is angst among the U.S. public, who hear frequently that China will soon surpass the United States in one economic superlative after another. Some worry that China’s rise will impair America’s capacity to fulfill or pursue its traditional geopolitical objectives. And those concerns are magnified by a media that cannot resist tempting the impulses of U.S. nationalism. Woven into stories about China’s frantic pace of development are reminders that the Chinese have not forgotten their two-century slumber—a period of humiliation and exploitation by foreign powers.

A recent National Journal cover story describing areas of bilateral policy contention—which the article laments as “frustrating” the fact that U.S. experts see “few alternatives to continued engagement” —features three menacing photographs of Chinese military formations, one picture of North Korean leader Kim Jong Il flanked by members of the Chinese military, and one photo of the Chinese foreign minister shaking hands with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.

Subtly, and sometimes not, the media and politicians are brandishing the image of an adversarial China. In Chinese reluctance to oblige U.S. policy wishes, we are told that China selfishly follows a “China-First” policy. In the increasing willingness of Chinese officials to criticize U.S. policies, we are told of a new “triumphalism” in China. In the reportedly shabby treatment of President Obama by his Chinese hosts on his recent trip to Beijing, we are told that the “Chinese have an innate sense of superiority.” But indignation among media and politicians over China’s aversion to saying “How high?” when the U.S. government says “Jump!” is not a persuasive argument for a more provocative posture.

China is a sovereign nation. Its government, like the U.S. government, pursues policies that it believes to be in its own interests (although those policies—with respect to both governments—are not always in the best interests of their people). Realists understand that objectives of the U.S. and Chinese governments will not always be the same, thus U.S. and Chinese policies will not always be congruous. Accentuating and cultivating the areas of agreement, while resolving or minimizing the differences, is the essence of diplomacy and statecraft. These tactics must continue to underpin a U.S. policy of engagement with China.

In this campaign, the RNC seems to be fighting to position itself to the protectionist side of Obama, daring the president to take action – a dare the president has accepted, inflating his political credit in places like Ohio. In response to Governor Romney’s assertion that the president had been soft on China and that he, Romney, would label China a currency manipulator on his first day in office, Obama created the Interagency Trade Enforcement Center, which resonated politically with the target audience. While the challenger blathers about the president’s alleged fecklessness in dealing with China, the president responds by bringing new WTO cases against Beijing. The most recent complaint, relative to the strident tack Mitt Romney is advocating, is the more responsible, more pro-market course of action. If Romney is to be believed, his trade actions would have far worse consequences for the economy.

Instead of focusing on the real sources of economic stagnation in the United States – including the uncertain business climate inspired by the bailouts, the proliferation of costly and superfluous new environmental, health, and financial regulations, a tax code that is in constant flux, frivolous torts, an education monopoly that fails to produce enough talent backstopped by an immigration system that chases it away – Mitt Romney has chosen to blame America’s woes on China. THAT is the message the Republican presidential candidate, with the full backing of the RNC, brings to the voters in Ohio, whose fortunes are increasingly tied to America’s engagement in the global economy. As of July, Ohio’s unemployment rate was 7.2 percent, more than one full percentage point lower than the U.S. rate of 8.3%. Ohio’s economy is growing on account of trade – particularly with China, the state’s third largest market and destination of $2.7 billion worth of Ohio’s output in 2011. Just look at this bar chart that depicts the importance of China to Ohio, and conversely, the costs of a real bilateral trade war.

Governor Romney should ditch his trade warrior schtick pronto, and start explaining to the electorate how pro-trade policies – including the freedom of corporations to invest abroad (to offshore a la Bain Capital)– help enlarge the economic pie. Puffing out the chest to appear the biggest protectionist in the race is bad economics and bad politics.

Economic freedom in the United States has plummeted to an all-time low. According to the Economic Freedom of the World: 2012 Annual Report, co-published today with the Fraser Institute, the United States’ ranking has dropped to 18th place after having ranked 3rd for decades up to the year 2000. The loss of freedom is a decade-long trend—the United States ranked 8th in 2005—that has accelerated in recent years.

Virtually every U.S. indicator has seen a deterioration. Government spending and regulations have grown, the rule of law and protection of property rights have weakened, and foreign investment and non-tariff barriers have increased. Authors James Gwartney, Robert Lawson, and Josh Hall note some of the reasons for the decline, including the war on terror and the growth of crony capitalism.

As the graph below shows, the United States now has a lower economic freedom rating than it did in the 1970s.

The United States’ fall is alarming not only because it’s the most important economy in the world, long associated with market-liberal policies, but also because Economic freedom is strongly correlated with prosperity, higher growth, and improvements in the entire range of standard-of-living indicators, so a decline negatively affects those outcomes. The authors calculate, for example, that the loss of economic freedom will cut long-term U.S. growth by half to about 1.5 percent per year.

Another country that has seen a notable, steady drop in its economic freedom is Venezuela, now ranked last in the index. Other countries have been on an upward trend. Chile is now ranked 10th and China, while still largely unfree, continues to head in the right direction (see graph).

Below are the top ten countries in this year’s index. You can see a full listing here on page 10.

As my colleague Richard Rahn says in his column today, this year’s economic freedom report should be a wake up call to all Americans.

Cato has just released a new video, titled “The Truth about Sequestration,” that tells the real story about sequestration, the automatic budget cuts required by the Budget Control Act. Many in Congress claim to abhor their creation, including many of those who voted for it, yet the members and the president haven’t done much to prevent it. Perhaps they shouldn’t do anything and let the cuts happen. In our video, my colleagues Ben Friedman and Dan Mitchell join me in explaining that, whatever its shortcomings as legislation (and there are many, as discussed below) sequestration may be the only viable way to reduce the Pentagon’s budget.

However, there’s little likelihood that sequestration will significantly reduce the defense budget long term. That’s because sequestration cuts the defense budget only in the first year. Every year after that, defense spending will increase. Spending levels will indeed be lower than the Pentagon last year expected them to be. But only in Washington is that considered a cut. So, under sequestration, instead of spending $5.7 trillion on defense over the next decade, as the FY2013 budget suggests, the government will spend about $5.2 trillion.

That $500 billion difference may not actually materialize. Congress has a few options to mitigate the effects of the initial $55 billion slice off the budget. They could reprogram funds after the sequester, change the definition of “programs, projects and activities” (the budget level at which the cuts are implemented), or take advantage of the flexibility within operations and maintenance (O&M) funds. In fact, because the Office of Management and Budget has declared that war spending is eligible to be sequestered, the total cuts to O&M can be spread out across a bigger pot of money. Beyond all that, sequestration does not affect outlays or funds already obligated, which means it will not affect existing contracts. So, the real story is that should sequestration actually happen, Congress and the Pentagon will have much more flexibility than they’re willing to admit.

Our video also highlights the fact that we spend far more on the military than is necessary. Since the end of the Cold War, policymakers and pundits have coalesced around the idea that the United States is the “indispensable nation” responsible for protecting everyone from everything. Under the misapprehension that threats anywhere in the world are necessarily threatening to the United States, we have taken on the responsibility of policing the entire planet. This increases the chances that the United States will become involved in conflicts that do not engage vital U.S. interests, or that we do not fully understand, or can easily remedy. This strategic hypochondria (H/T Ted Galen Carpenter) also burden American taxpayers with additional costs that could and should be borne by others. The video includes a nifty graphic showing the expansion of NATO. We have added a host of weak or fragile countries in the Middle East and Southwest Asia (including, still, Iraq and Afghanistan), and now we are doubling down with assurances to Asian nations that we will constrain China (and implying that they need not do so).

In short, a bloated defense budget has enabled these misguided policies, encourages free-riding by our “allies” and make us less safe abroad and less free at home. Though I would have much preferred a serious strategic debate before the current fiscal crisis, and indeed called for such a thing, sequestration should help us to refocus our national security priorities. In fact, the real story is that sequestration doesn’t restrict our choices, it enables us to make better ones.

Americans shouldn’t worry that sequestration will make our defense budget too small. We account for approximately 48 percent of the world’s military spending. We will retain a margin of superiority over any conceivable combination of rivals, including China, even if our share of military spending fell to 44 or 45 percent of the world’s total.

Sequestration was no one’s first choice, but keeping our reckless spending and strategic myopia on auto pilot is worse.

That sounds obvious, right? I would have thought so. But this Washington Post article on U.S.-China trade issues seems to conflate the two. There’s a lot to criticize in the article, but I want to focus on these two sentences:

WTO challenges are not the only tool the United States has to try to open China’s market. The Commerce Department has imposed dozens of tariffs on Chinese products considered unfairly priced or subsidized.

Now, World Trade Organization complaints are certainly a way to open foreign markets. But imposing tariffs on foreign products through anti-dumping and countervailing duties is not, repeat not, a way to open foreign markets. Rather, it is a way to close our markets. Not the same thing at all.